Sears Heroes at Home Registration Flawed
(CA)
I wish Sears would fix the registration process for the Heroes at Home program! I tried to register today (8/31/11).
When I entered the requested information, the system told me I was under the age of 18 and kicked me out. I'm 32. This is bull!
And of course, you sit on hold for an hour on the phone waiting to complain or find out how to fix the problem, and by then registration is closed.
Is this how Sears honors their heroes? Get their hopes up by telling us they're helping us and then have their system tell us we're under the legal age? I wouldn't be serving our country if I were under age. Whatever!
Editor's response:
First, let us say that the Sears Heroes at Home program is a wonderful outreach effort by Sears to both raise awareness of and show appreciation for the sacrifices being made by American military members and families in the decade since the terrorist attacks on 9/11/2001.
It is a volunteer effort - not something Sears is required to do, and certainly not something that our service members are "entitled" to. Because of the ongoing nature of the program from year to year, however, service members and their families look forward to the opportunity to register when the registration is opened, and there is a rush to register.
Not being eligible to register myself, as the spouse of a retired service member, I have no personal experience with the registration system. I can only comment on the information provided to me by readers like you, who express frustration with not being able to find out when the registration will open, and who report problems with the registration system similar to the one you experienced.
I, too,
Two years ago, as a result of reader requests, I contacted Sears and asked to be notified when the Heroes at Home program registration would open, so I could notify my readers. Sears responded that it notified a selected list of military publications and bloggers, so I asked them to add Military-Money-Matters.com to their list.
That's the only time I ever heard from them. No acknowledgement, approval or denial of my request, and no notifications of program registration.
So I went online, joined the MySears community, and repeated my request for notification. Again, no response.
Last year, the registration was in October, this year it's in August. Last year, they announced a 3-day window, then closed it on the first day after they were overwhelmed with applications. This year, there's only a 2-hour window.
The Heroes at Home program generates tremendous positive PR for Sears, as it gets credit for benefits it bestows in part out of its own generosity. Part of the funding for this program, however, comes from cash donated by caring Americans, for which Sears also gets the credit.
Because of the inconsistencies with the way Heroes at Home is handled from year to year, the difficulty in getting information about when the registry will open, and the seemingly uncaring attitude displayed by some Sears' personnel when people ask questions or try to get help with the registration process, it has also generated a lot of negative publicity for Sears as well.
Here's hoping Sears figures out a way to improve its process for handling what should be a positive experience for everyone.
Thanks, Sears, for the Heroes at Home program. Please keep working to make it better.
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